US immigration reforms: Indians want Obama to cut long wait for green cards

Every US presidential election throws up its share of surprises — and this time it was the Latino voters. The fact that over 70% of them voted for Barack Obama has turned the spotlight on immigration reforms, which have been largely on hold in the run-up to the elections.

No surprise that President Obama highlighted immigration reform policy in his first press meet after re-election on Wednesday. The roadmap for immigration reforms is likely to address the issue of illegal immigrants but at the same time attract and retain highly skilled manpower from overseas.

"When I say comprehensive immigration reform, it is very similar to the outlines of previous efforts at comprehensive immigration reform," Obama said. He is hopeful of bipartisan support on immigration issues.

And while immigration reforms may be top of the mind, even for the Republicans right now, the reforms that Indians in the US are looking at are very different from what the largest immigrant community — the Latinos — have on their wishlist.

Focus on Immigration Policy

Sanjay Puri, chairman, US India Political Action Committee, believes that immigration reforms will now be on the fast track. "One of the things that President Obama has said consistently in public and private is that he will try to get immigration reform done in his second term. Given the challenges the Republicans faced in states such as Nevada, Florida, Colorado and New Mexico, they are likely to realise that they need to take into account a fast-growing Hispanic population, which is turning to the Democrats in a big way.

To make inroads into the community and to ensure that they don't become a permanent minority, the Republicans will need to be at the table on fixing immigration reforms. It would mean that H-1B and skill-based visas, the main concern of Indian immigrants, would also become part of the discussion, along with the need to retain Indian students with degrees in sciences from US universities and giving them green cards," he said.

Obama's decision in June 2012 to stop the deportation of young illegal immigrants, who arrived in America with their parents and graduated from US schools, has found huge support among the Hispanic community. This category of immigrants has been allowed to receive work authorisation and their numbers are believed to be about 1.4 million.

Concerns of Indians

For Indians and Indian Americans, issues such as the proposed STEM legislation, which would fast-track green card for foreign students with advanced degrees in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), are far more important. So far, Republicans and Democrats have failed to reach an agreement on the proposed STEM law or the bill that will eliminate country-specific green card quotas. This law called the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act HR 3012 too is being watched very closely by Indians in America, many of whom are waiting in long green card queues.

Experts now feel that there's a greater chance of the stalemate on immigration reforms ending and the process moving forward. "Given how poorly the Republicans did with Hispanic voters, there is a greater chance that the current stalemate on immigration policy will be broken. President Obama has said immigration reform is a priority and Republicans will be more inclined to cut a deal with him to get the issue off the table for future elections. For Indian businesses, however, any immigration deal could be a double-edged sword. There may be some increase in H-1B guest worker quotas but that is likely to be coupled with more stringent rules," says Ron Hira, professor of public policy, Rochester Institute of Technology.

There are major concerns over H-1B and L1 work permit visas too among Indian companies. Over the past year, it is believed that refusal rates for work permit visas have gone up sharply, which hit Indian IT companies hard. Purnima Voria, national adviser to the Obama administration, minority business development agency, United States department of commerce, says, "This is the time to raise H-1B visa issues and to tackle them. The Indian American business community is playing an important role in highlighting such issues with the US departments of commerce, immigration and labour."

Immigration Laws on Hold

STEM Legislation

It has broad bipartisan support and is aimed at creating a new green card category for foreign students holding US master's degree or PhD in science, technology, engineering or maths. The area of disagreement between Republicans and Democrats is on whether to create 50,000 new immigrant visas or to reallocate from another category.

Elimination of Country-Specific Green Card Quotas

Also called the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act HR 3012, it will eliminate country-specific quotas in the allocation of employment-based green cards. For Indians facing a huge green card backlog, with some even waiting for over a decade to be granted permanent residence in the US, this will be a big advantage.

This is a bipartisan legislation that will provide undocumented young people with a path to citizenship on completion of college. While Obama signed an executive order preventing the deportation of undocumented immigrants under 30 who meet the requirements of the act, legislative action is yet to be taken on it.